


Actions Speak Louder

by quiffedphil



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), dan and phil
Genre: 2.6k words of sappyness, 2009 Phan, 2017 Phan, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Phan Fluff, Phanfiction, VidCon, phil lester appreciation, selective mutism, spoiler - Freeform, tyler oakley appears briefly, youtube conventions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:07:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9175828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiffedphil/pseuds/quiffedphil
Summary: Phil is unbelievably amazing in every way possible and he's there for Dan at all times, supporting him and helping him through things that no one else knows about.It just hurts Dan that he can't give Phil what he deserves.





	

“I had it as a child, but my parents thought that I was just trying to be difficult and it never really improved because there was no treatment.” Dan had explained, stuttering through his words and forcing them out as he tried to explain to his idol why he had acted like such an ass.

He had really ruined everything, after all that time spent skyping and talking about meeting each other in person, Dan had screwed it up. he had been so excited about this too. He was meeting his idol for Pete’s sake, the guy that he looked up too and if he was being honest, had a teeny tiny crush on.

“Dan, it’s alright, you don’t have to explain yourself to me.” Phil reassured him, grabbing Dan’s hands in his own to stop him from nervously picking at the skin around his fingernails. It worked, Dan was too focused on the fact that Phil Lester – AmazingPhil – was holding his hands.

“No, I know, but I want to because we’ve had such an amazing day and I loved filming that Q&A video with you – even if you did tackle me at the end - and we went out and it was the best, really it was, and then I fucked it all up and I need to explain that I didn’t mean to, I just couldn’t-“

“Stop.” There was a slightly authoritative tone the word when Phil said it and it made Dan’s litany of excuses stop as he stared wide eyed at Phil with his mouth hanging open. “It’s not your fault. I don’t care what your family says, what our friends say or what anyone says. I don’t blame you at all.”

“You said ‘our friends’.” Dan said hoarsely.

“Of course I did, you're going to be stuck with me for a long time yet.” Phil said, peeking at Dan through his lion mane mess of hair and giggling in that absurd way so that his tongue was peeking out through his teeth.

 Dan had never smiled so brightly in his life.

“VidCon 2017.” Phil exclaimed excitedly, standing in front of the massive building, the sun was glinting off of his freshly dyed hair and Dan was already feeling pretty envious that he hadn’t thought to wear a shirt as well.

Dan had stupidly decided to put on an insane jumper which Phil had laughed at when he first saw it, but Dan had scolded him and justified his decision with a snooty ‘you just don’t understand fashion, Phil.’ As it happened, Phil may not have understood fashion, but he did understand the weather and how to avoid sunstroke. As a previous sufferer of sunstroke, Dan had expected himself to be a little bit smarter, but no, apparently not. It was suffering for the name of fashion.

“Are you excited?” Phil asked, turning to stare at Dan with the expression of a five year old child in a chocolate shop.

“Of course.” Dan said immediately, not really thinking about it, he was too focused on the expressions that were running across Phil’s face and thoughts of how lucky he was that they had been together since 2009.

“I heard that this is the biggest one yet, apparently it’s almost double the number of people that were there last year.” Phil recalled.

“Double?” Dan asked faintly.

“Yeah, are you going to be ok?” Phil asked as Dan’s expression caught his attention, the excited look slipping off his face as he looked at Dan with concern, and Dan wanted nothing more than that small frown to vanish from Phil’s face.

“Sure, we’ll just be meeting our friends today, there aren’t any meet and greets planned until tomorrow and there aren’t any panels today either. I'm sure it’ll be fine.” Dan said, not sounding the least bit reassuring.

“We don’t have to go say hi to everyone today?” Phil offered. “We can go to the hotel and relax? Settle in?”

“No, honestly, I’ll be fine.” Dan said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

It had taken a while to convince Phil that he really would be alright but finally they were inside and looking for their friends. It was weird that they spent more time with their friends at conventions and events than they did when they were at home, but it was just one of the problems with everyone having such busy lives and schedules.

It was a great chance to catch up with everyone and find out how they were doing, but Dan wasn’t as fine as he made himself out to be.

He was far from it and he knew that he should have said something to Phil but he didn’t want to, he couldn’t ruin this, not after Phil had looked so enthusiastic.

“Hey there’s Tyler!” Phil said, tugging slightly on Dan’s sleeve, it was one of their ways to hold each other’s hand in public, a slight tug on the sleeve as a reminder that they were right next to each other. “Let’s go say hi.”

Dan didn’t respond, he just followed silently behind Phil as he tried to reassure himself that he would be ok.

Dan didn’t like to tell people, but ever since he was young he had suffered from selective mutism, it was a confusing thing to explain to most people because they didn’t take the time to understand the concept of being physically unable to talk in some situations. Most people, like Dan’s parents, had immediately thought that it was his own fault and that if he really wanted to talk then he would, it was just him being rude.

He wasn’t being rude, he wished that he could have opened his mouth and told them that, but he just couldn’t and it was beyond frustrating. He would open his mouth to speak and nothing would come out, it usually felt like there was something lodged in his throat choking him, except he could still breathe so that was impossible. His school counsellor had simply tutted her head and told him that there were easier ways to go about getting attention if he wanted it so badly.

In fact, Phil had been the first person that he had told who had simply accepted him for who he was. He didn’t turn around and tell Dan to just speak up and be more confident, he didn’t tell Dan that he was lying and doing it to get attention, he just nodded and smiled and said that it was ok, if they ever got into a challenging situation then he could talk for the two of them.

Whenever someone would come over for a collab Phil would stream their videos to the TV through the chromecast and watch them with Dan, pointing out little quirks of theirs to help Dan feel more comfortable. It was a fantastic idea, when they arrived and spoke to Dan, he was so used to their voice that he instantly felt comfortable and was able to talk as though it were just him and Phil in the room. He was also able to reference their videos which always earned brownie points.  

Before they went to any convention Phil would practice going through potential questions that they may be asked and help Dan to rehearse answers, the viewers constantly laughed and joked that Dan only looked at Phil when he was answering questions but that was because he was trying to imagine that he was only talking to Phil. It wasn’t easy and there was a reason why his face always went red during panels but they got through them, Dan was even getting better now at joking with the live audience.

The tour had tested things a little, but with careful rehearsals and bright lights that meant Dan could barely see the audience, they got through it. They were massive achievements for Dan that would have never been possible without Phil and he was so grateful to him.

“But how can you make YouTube videos if you won't talk half of the time?” His Uncle had asked him once, unfortunately Dan found the whole ‘Christmas dinner with extended family’ fiasco extremely stressful and his vocal chords decided to take that moment to freeze up. Which left Dan with no option but the shrug slightly and shovel a forkful of Brussel sprouts into his mouth.

What people would never understand is that YouTube wasn’t exactly speaking in front of millions of people, well it kinda was, but it was different. He was talking to people through the camera, he could edit it, start again or if he was having a ‘bad’ day then he could turn off the camera and try again another day. It gave him a voice when he didn’t think he would ever have one.

“Hey, Guys!” Tyler exclaimed exuberantly as he pulled each of them in for a hug.

Dan forced a smile on his face and prayed that the panic wasn’t showing, he could feel the lump in his throat forming and growing without his permission.

He subtly latched onto Phil’s sleeve and gave it an urgent tug, which caused Phil to look at him worriedly.

He tried his best to give Phil a meaningful look, and shook his head slightly.

“Now?” Phil mouthed.

Dan nodded and watched as Phil transformed before his eyes into an extremely extroverted, chatty version of himself who was constantly asking Tyler questions and keeping him talking so that he didn’t specifically ask Dan any direct questions.

Dan on the other hand kept the smile forced onto his face and reminded himself to nod in the right places, insert a silent laugh here and there, and a roll of the eyes. He could do this, it was fine, Phil was right beside him and controlling the situation, he always knew that he could rely on Phil and here he was proving it.

Phil had done this before for him, when they had ran into a group of fans in the middle of a coffee shop, Dan wasn’t that bad in public settings as long as no one was paying too much attention to him, he could usually get by well enough by talking to Phil or hiding behind his phone screen. However, when a group of teenage girls literally squeal and barrel towards the two six foot men sipping lattes in the corner, it’s bound to attract some attention.

Unfortunately when there’s a group of people it’s a little harder to hide the fact that one person isn’t speaking, thankfully Phil was an incredibly quick thinker and told the girls that Dan had tonsillitis and couldn’t really speak at the moment, they bought it straight away telling him to get better soon and that they hoped he would be alright for the start of the tour.

Dan had been incredibly thankful to Phil for that one, even if it meant that he had to cancel his live show the next day due to his ‘tonsillitis’.

“Well, it was great seeing you guys.” Tyler said, grabbing them both for another hug, Dan had forgotten how touchy feely some of their friends could be. “I’ll let you go though, we have a panel together tomorrow anyway so best save some conversation for that.”

And so with another grin and a cheeky wink, Tyler vanished, not even questioning Dan’s silence. Phil really did have so many more talents than he was given credit for, he managed to create an entire conversation and trick Tyler into thinking that all three of them were participating without Dan having any attention drawn to himself.

“Thank you.” Dan whispered when they were alone, he was pleased his voice had returned but it was still too quiet for comfort.

He felt like an idiot, he had met Tyler so many times before today and chatted to him with no problems, so why on earth did he have to screw up now? He’d even filmed videos with him before. Dan tried to remind himself that sometimes his selective mutism played up, it was uncontrollable and he couldn’t stop it, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

“Come on, we should get out of here,” Phil said gently, “I want pancakes, let’s go find the nearest IHOP.”

Dan smiled, Phil didn’t really want pancakes – well, knowing Phil, maybe he did – he was just making up an excuse for them to leave, so that Dan didn’t have to feel guilty about it. Sometimes Dan wanted to grab Phil’s shoulders and shake him while screaming at him to stop being so self-sacrificing and kind all of the time, Dan could put up with this to make him happy.

“I'm sorry.” Dan said quietly.

“Why?” Phil asked, frowning as though he couldn’t understand what on earth Dan could possibly be sorry for.

“You know why,” Dan muttered, “I ruin everything.”

“You’ve never ruined a single thing.” Phil said adamantly.

“That’s a load of rubbish.” Dan scoffed.

“No it’s not, ever since you came into my life, things have looked up. There is nothing that you could ever do that would ruin anything for me.” Phil said, looking upset at the thought.

“You're too good to me, Phil Lester.” Dan sighed.

“Does that mean you’ll buy me pancakes?” Phil asked with a cheeky grin.

“So that’s why you’re dating me?” Dan asked jokingly. “For the pancakes?”

“As if there would be any other reason.” Phil said with a laugh that made his tongue poke out.

It constantly annoyed Dan that Phil deserved everything.

He deserved the entire earth and all the beautiful places on it, the ones that they had seen which had made his smile grow across his face like a little child’s and the places that they hadn’t seen yet, the ones on Dan’s list that was hidden inside a Delia Smith cookbook, all the places that Dan planned on taking Phil someday so that he could watch the wonder in his face and be the person behind the camera who captured the moment for them to look back on.

He deserved the sun, which showed the slight blue highlights that the hair dye Phil bought again caused. It brought out the freckles on his skin and was a sure fire way to get him to wear sunglasses, and Dan loved it when Phil wore sunglasses. He deserved the moon in all its ethereal beauty and the stars that were so bright and yet so far away, and the feeling of mystery, the existential wonderment of being so small and yet so alive in the face of the vast universe.

He deserved all the happiness in the world and all the credit for his wonderful, stolen, ideas but instead he got Dan, and Phil seemed quite content with just having Dan. He would smile like he was seeing the sun for the first time when he woke up to see Dan lying next to him in the mornings, and he would stare in wonder as though he were stargazing whenever Dan decided to play the piano, especially if he played Phil’s favourite songs. He always turned his gaze to Dan whenever they travelled to a new place, because as he told Dan, there was no one else he’d rather have beside him in that moment.

Dan wanted to give Phil what he deserved but all he could give him was himself. The good and the bad, and thankfully Phil loved both sides.

“I know I can't always get the words out,” Dan said softly, “but I just want you to know that I really, really appreciate and love you, Phil, I just want you to remember that. Even when I'm not saying anything, I'm thinking about how much I love you.”

The smile that Dan got in return was blinding and made him think that only giving Phil himself might possibly be enough.  

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you thought? this was literally a 3am drabble so it might be a bit weird. If you liked this then you might like to check out my other fic 'Missing Pieces' 
> 
> come join me on tumblr @existentialcatwhiskers


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